Area Codes Attracting Little Usage

February 09, 1990|By David C. Rudd.

Computer records at Illinois Bell`s switching centers have disclosed that most customers failed to use the proper area code when dialing to or from the suburbs more than two months after the new suburban 708 area code was introduced, a spokesman said Thursday.

According to a computerized tracking process done weekly at seven of Illinois Bell`s 156 switching centers, only about 20.4 percent of the calls from the 312 area code to the new 708 area code for Chicago`s surburbs are dialed correctly. About 9.4 percent of the calls from the suburbs to the city are dialed correctly.

Those figures were recorded between Jan. 22 and Jan. 27, said Illinois Bell spokesman Richard Hill. In early December, the company reported that 14 percent of the calls from the 312 region to the 708 region were dialed correctly, and about 7.5 percent of the calls from the suburbs to the city were dialed correctly.

The latest results dispute a random telephone sampling of about 400 business and residential customers, which Illinois Bell took in mid-January. According to that survey, about 57 percent of the customers asked said they were dialing 1-708 to reach suburban telephone numbers or 1-312 to reach numbers in the city.

The results from the switching centers are similar to the experiences of phone companies in other major cities that have added an area code, said Illinois Bell spokesman Richard Hill.

Illinois Bell customers have had the option since Nov. 11 of dialing 1-312 or 1-708. But on midnight Friday, callers will be required to use correct area code when dialing to and from the suburbs. Engineers will reprogram computers at the switching centers to make the extra dialing mandatory, Hill said.

After that time, callers who do not use the appropriate area code will hear a recorded message that notifies them of the new area code and the need to hang up and redial.

Since the area code made its debut on Nov. 11, the phone company has investigated 433 instances in which callers said they were having trouble completing calls, Hill said. About 185 of those complaints had no attributable cause, Hill said, adding that the company suspects those problems were due mainly to misdialing by callers.

But the company also attributed about 90 complaints to central switching offices in other states that had not been programmed to recognize 708.

The company expects some complaints to recur as customers get accustomed to the new area code, and as businesses in other states program their private branch exchanges, the switching systems that handle multiple telephone lines on the premises of a business, to recognize 708.

Hill said Illinois Bell has informed private branch exchange vendors in other states of the new area code. The vendors are expected to notify their customers of the need to reprogram the switching systems to recognize 708.